Paul
adamatdramatrain'S REVIEW

Laughs are alien

Nice idea. Nice trailer. Falls flat on its big green headed alien face as a full length movie. Painfully obvious and almost totally devoid of laughs, originality, wit or much to say. Is it just me? Or is "Paul", just like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead," another "good idea" movie that would have worked far better and been far funnier as a half-hour episode of something like Pegg's excellent TV sit-com, "Spaced"? If you beep the bad language this is basically a kids film about a potty mouthed alien who is helped by two comic-book and sci-fi movie geeks. The nods to Spielberg, Lucas and a few sci-fi movies were fun but hardly made it either funny or bearable. But then again, I was unimpressed by "Shaun of the Dead" - nice title, dull movie - so what do I know? For me, true comedy is "Monty Python's Life of Brian," or Sami Rami's "Evil Dead 2" or Peter Jackson's "Braindead." This? This is just a middle-of-the-road-movie with a cute stoner alien CGI character, but we've seen Seth Rogan as an alien playing the far funnier character of Bob the Blob in "Monsters vs Aliens." Two yawn-inducing stars for Mr Pegg and Mr Frost :(